Most of you use flash memory in the form of USB sticks, SD cards and CompactFlash cards. Unfortunately there isn’t any test you can run that will absolutely say whether a flash stick or card is going to fail, so you have to use common sense. Here are 5 easy ways to tell if your flash-based memory is failing. 1. It does not recognize immediately when...

If you have a laptop running Windows 7 where the wireless card disconnects for seemingly no reason, it may be your power options settings causing the problem. Before continuing, when I say “disconnects”, I don’t mean that the wireless card is having problems connecting. I mean that at some point after using your laptop for a while, the wireless...

If you’re like most computer users, you have a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply); these are available at all office stores. Most of you know these things as “the huge brick-like power strip that beeps really loud when the power goes out”. Chances are that most of you have an entry-level UPS with 6 power outlets on it, with 3 being able to run...

Gadgets are great, in whatever form, and we just cannot get enough of them. Whether it’s the latest smartphone, a lightest, thinnest, most powerful laptop ever created, an amazing watch that James Bond would be proud of or just a simple pair of hair straighteners, we just have to have them. But gadgets aren’t just restricted to the home, with increasing...

People have been debating about whether Ultrabooks will save the NAND Flash Memory Industry or not. Some experts say, “Yes.” With the drop of NAND sales and the flooding of Ultrabooks, some have called Ultrabooks “The ‘shining new hope’ for NAND sales.” Not surprisingly, with the use of SSDs and the joint use of less case...

Off and on I’ve talked about the Raspberry Pi computer. I want one. Badly. Why? Because it’s only 25 bucks, I am a computer minimalist by nature and could get along nicely with a little Pi box on my desktop. I’d have to add in a USB hub, mouse and monitor of course, but the point is the idea of an itty bitty box handling all your computer stuff...

When it comes to documents you need to save for a really long time and simply not worry about it, you basically have two choices. Either you backup the files to tape, or you print it out and rescan it into the computer using a scanner and OCR (optical character recognition) software. What’s a “really long time”? Any length of time more than 5...

The mother of all mechanical keyboards is of course the IBM Model M. The only problem is that if you own one you almost always have to use an adapter to mate it to a USB port. It’s either that or you purposely seek out one with a PS/2 connector to direct-connect to the PS/2 keyboard port on your motherboard (assuming it even has one). Are mechanical...

For this article I have to be really specific as there are different types of sound cards out there. I am specifically referring to PCI slot interface cards. Not PCI Express. Not USB. Not wireless. Just the plain very-established PCI interface sound card that specifically installs in PCs and nowhere else. I don’t know of too many motherboards that...

The New Backlit NookBarnes and Noble has announced the coming release of the latest version of its Nook e-reader. The new model is not profoundly different from the previous version, except for one major addition. The new Nook Simple Touch boasts patent-pending GlowLight technology. GlowLight allows Nook users to read in the dark without having to use an...